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Security Apparatus Detain Four Employees of Jawwal Company in Gaza City

At 3:00p.m. on Tuesday 13 March 2018, the security apparatus in Gaza summoned to its office four employees working at Jawwal company. According to monitoring, security officers informed these employees of the summon order via a phone call. The employees, who were kept in detention when they arrived to the security apparatus office, are Omar Mohammed Shamali, general director of Gaza Strip region, Abdulfattah Harbi Al Shurafa, commercial manager, Bassam Faraih Al Edeni, head of the technical directorate, and Mustafa Bassam Al Kayyali, manager of a customer service unit. The four employees were released at 2:00am on Wednesday, 14 March 2018, and they were asked to come back in the morning of the same day. Omar Shamali provides the following information: Members of the internal security apparatus detained him as well as his other three colleagues in a room inside the security’s office in Kasr Al Hakem. Omar was asked to provide information on records of cellphone numbers registered with Jawwal Company, to help with investigations into the attempted assassination of the Palestinian PM. Omar was threatened with an order to close Jawwal Company in Gaza in case he would not provide the needed information to the security apparatus. Omar responded by asking to receive a formal request from the general attorney in Ramallah to be able to provide the needed information, according to Palestinian law.

At 10:00am on Wednesday, 14 March 2018, the four employees were again summoned and were detained until 11:00pm on the same day.

At 10:00pm on Thursday, 15 March 2018, a security forces jeep arrived to the Marna House Hotel in the middle of Gaza city, where Omar Shamal stayed, and the security officers detained him. He was released at around 1:00am on Friday, 16 March 2018. At 5:00pm on 17 March 2018, the four employees reported to the security apparatus office in response to another by-phone summon. They were then released at 1:00am on 18 March 2018 but again summoned at 10:00am on Sunday for the same purpose.